2025's Best Digital Partnership Goes To...

👋 Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, a weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry! 

ICYMI, I shared some big news this week. My contract with the New York Mets wraps at the end of the year, so I’ll be entering 2026 as a free agent and looking for my next opportunity.

Here’s how I can help:

I’m looking for a role where I can make an immediate impact, whether that’s stepping into a full-time senior leadership position or partnering as a consultant to help teams accelerate digital revenue.

A bit about me:

• Proven track record of double-digit digital revenue growth

• Expertise in digital partnerships, integrated marketing, and content strategy

• Award-winning sponsorship marketer

• Open to relocation (English-speaking markets)

Where I make the biggest impact:

I help teams fix undervalued or overlooked digital inventory, especially in organizations where content and sales operate in silos, so they can unlock meaningful revenue without burning out their staff.

If you know a team, brand, league, agency, or company that could use that kind of lift, I’d be grateful for any intros or connections.

Thank you, truly, for the support.

In Today’s Edition:

• ‘25’s Top Digital Partnership 🧱 

• Boston Common Tea Party 🫖 

• Ronaldo vs Rober Robot ⚽️

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
What Made LEGO’s F1 Partnership Unbeatable

If LEGO’s 2024 partnership with McLaren was the tone-setter, it earned them a finalist spot for Digital Partnership of the Year (see last year’s intro), then their 2025 collaboration with Formula 1 pushed them over the top.

2025’s best digital partnership was LEGO and Formula 1.

In sports sponsorship, the best partnerships aren’t the ones with the biggest rights fees, they’re the ones that actually show up. Often. Everywhere. With purpose.

That’s why LEGO and F1 hit differently this year.

F1’s young, fast-growing fanbase lined up perfectly with LEGO’s target growth area. And once the partnership launched, both sides went all-in. It became the rare sponsorship that didn’t just appear in the feed. It became part of the culture.

Here’s how LEGO and F1 pulled it off.

Building An F1 Ecosystem

As the partnership kicked off, LEGO didn’t just roll out new products, they built an entire ecosystem built to meet fans at every level inlcuding inspiration tools in the LEGO Play app and a dedicated “Build the Thrill” hub on their website pulled everything together with browser games, digital guides, and interactive challenges.

The lineup touched every age range, from preschoolers to adult collectors.

For younger fans, LEGO City and DUPLO sets anchored the entry point. LEGO expanded its Technic line with two highly detailed builds—the Ferrari SF-24 and Red Bull RB20—aimed at fans who love the engineering behind the sport. They also released 10 Speed Champions sets, one for each team on the 2024 grid, all landing in the 240–270 piece range to make them accessible but collectible. And for nostalgia, LEGO dropped a 1992 Nigel Mansell Williams Racing set as part of the Icons line, following last year’s Ayrton Senna McLaren MP4/4. It was a clean way to nod to F1 history while the rest of the line leaned modern.

What elevated the product wave was the content engine behind it. LEGO, the teams, and even the drivers treated every launch like an event.

Nigel Mansell opened the year in January’s announcement video reflecting on driving the FW14B. LEGO followed with a detailed video showing off key features.

The Technic launches were even louder. Red Bull and Ferrari got involved, with Max Verstappen explaining how he’d build the RB20 and returning in a playful follow-up once the set hit shelves. Ferrari put its Technic car through a wind-tunnel “test” with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc before dropping a high-res carousel of the final build. LEGO amplified the moment with five RB20 posts from comparing the Technic version (Pit Stop | Size | Sound) to the real car to recreating classic, on-track moments (Sao Paulo GP | MK7 HQ).

Meanwhile, Lando Norris took a “Brick Break” to build the McLaren LEGO City set, LEGO’s photographer turned the Speed Champions cars into life-like on-track shoots, and DUPLO even popped up in a seek-and-find game during the Japanese Grand Prix.

Ahead of F1’s 75th season, LEGO tied it all together with the Build The Thrill Race, a livestream with 50 LEGO F1 cars racing down a gravity-powered track inspired by circuits dreamed up by F1 drivers.

Two months later, they scaled the idea up, literally.

From Track To Timeline

Ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, Formula 1 reinvented the drivers’ parade: all 20 drivers piloted 10 fully drivable, life-size Speed Champions cars, built with sponsor logos, Pirelli tyres, and all the tiny details that make LEGO sets feel obsessively accurate. It worked because it proved LEGO could translate miniature sets into something that belonged on an actual F1 circuit.

And the moment didn’t fade. The Mercedes build went on a global tour. In November, LEGO extended it further with Bricks on Track, a longform documentary showing how the team designed and built all 10 cars, roughly 400,000 bricks and thousands of hours each.

Keeping that momentum alive was a tall order, but F1 and LEGO kept leveling up. At the British Grand Prix, the top three finishers received brick-built trophies. Lando Norris winning his first home race didn’t hurt and provided an extra emotional punch to the moment.

Then came Las Vegas. F1 and LEGO unveiled the Cadillac cool-down car: a full-scale pink LEGO Cadillac styled like a 1950s classic—a nod to Elvis Presley’s iconic car and a teaser for Cadillac joining the grid in 2026.

From there, it went full internet. The team recreated the White Chicks “A Thousand Miles” scene with Terry Crews, pushing the build into meme territory. And the ripple effect continued when a post-race disqualification bumped Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli onto the podium and he finally got to wear the now-famous LEGO sunglasses.

Turning IP Into Impact

In sports sponsorship, buying the partnership is the easy part. The hard part is how you work the assets you have.

Ricardo Fort summed this up on an August 2024 episode of the CUSP Show: top brands don’t stop at securing the deal. They squeeze every ounce of value out of it. Sometimes that means more investment to maximize the return.

LEGO was a prime example.

They didn’t just “activate” the partnership, they treated it like a year-round content engine. On Instagram alone, they pushed 66 pieces of F1 content: 48 originals and 18 collabs. That’s consistency.

And consistency matters.

A recent Wakefield study found the biggest driver of sponsor recall is simply how often the sponsor appears in a viewer’s feed. Recall grows with repetition.

Here’s the catch: you don’t always have unlimited access to the rightsholder’s channels. Not only would that bring significant financial implications, but also, Formula 1 has to balance multiple partners and maintain their brand integrity. So if you want scale, you often have to build it yourself.

And that’s exactly what LEGO did.

They didn’t just post often; they posted with purpose.

• They launched a “Best in Play” award for standout moments.

• They dropped animated shorts before select races (3.6M IG views/video).

• They invested in creators and influencers to bring “Build the Thrill” fan zones to life, extending the experience beyond the 13 tracks where they popped up.

Each piece worked individually, but together they created a drumbeat that kept LEGO top-of-mind.

It wasn’t about flooding the feed. It was about LEGO creating consistent, intentional touchpoints that reinforced the partnership all season.

Looking Ahead: F1 Academy Sponsorship

LEGO’s F1 Academy partnership signaled a major step for 2026, blending creativity, representation, and long-term brand building.

• The tease: LEGO seeded the collab by showing only the back of a female LEGO driver.

• The reveal: They introduced driver Esmee Kosterman and the LEGO-inspired livery that will join the grid in 2026.

• The amplification: The Las Vegas Sphere delivered a massive spotlight.

The most powerful post didn’t appear on F1 or LEGO channels. It came from F1 Academy Managing Director Susie Wolff. She reframed it from a product launch to a purpose-driven milestone, building belief, not just a toy. Her key detail: the Academy car is now part of the Speed Champions set, letting fans build something that reflects visibility and opportunity.

It’s a deeper step into the partnership—one centered on representation, storytelling, and the next generation. This partnership expansion set the stage for what could be an even bigger year in 2026.

The Takeaway

The real lesson from LEGO and F1? You don’t win by buying a partnership, you win by working it. Consistency, creativity, and purpose helped them show up the right way, in the right places, for the right audiences, and that’s what makes a partnership stick.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

Mark Rober challenged Cristiano Ronaldo to score on the world’s greatest goalkeeper, a robot he built powered by T-Mobile’s 5G network.

Boston Common Golf held a preseason event cleverly called a Tea Party presented by Comcast Business, with the main event featuring the TGL team’s investors and ambassadors Niall Horan and Noah Kahan challenging Good Good to a match at the SoFi Center. That match was filmed and shared on Good Good’s YouTube channel, reeling in over 330K views.

Speaking of Creator Golf, the Break 50 concept has broken through to cricket. The Switch, Kevin Pietersen’s YouTube channel, has launched its new 50 Balls To Score 100 format presented by Duelbit News. The KL Rahul debut episode surpassed 2.3 million views in less than a week.

I was waiting for the Google Pixel selfie (shared Tuesday), but it was McLaren’s new title sponsor, Mastercard, that landed the first sponsored post during Lando Norris’ world championship celebration. It was priceless.

FC Barcelona celebrated their front of shirt partner’s big annual moment, Spotify Wrapped, with a press conference hosted by Spanish singer songwriter Lia Kali and a carousel showing four players’ Wrapped graphics.

Epic Games partnered with the winners of all three NFL Thanksgiving games (Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, and Cincinnati Bengals), sponsoring celebratory postgame photos with the signature Fortnite Victory Royale branding. According to VaynerSports EVP of Marketing Zachary Rubin, the sponcon outperformed much of the teams’ organic content on Instagram. This was the latest edition of the campaign that originally launched during this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.

🚨 ICYMI
What To Watch For

CR7’s AI Partnership: Perplexity announced a global partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo, centered on a dedicated CR7 hub that lets fans explore his career, highlights, and stories in an interactive way.

Untapped Fan Data: At WSC Sports’ Madrid Huddle, Jordi Mompart (FC Barcelona) and Roger Forns (RCD Mallorca) explained how their teams are turning fan signals into real value.

From Reach to Ownership: Nirupam Singh breaks down how Alex Albon’s content operation uses owned platforms, especially his app, to deepen fan relationships and unlock brand partnerships that go far beyond the rented reach of social media [via Commerical Table Newsletter].

Super Livery Reveal: Cadillac is going big game hunting in its inaugural F1 season, unveiling its livery through a Super Bowl commercial [via Marissa Tandon].

Early Access Reels Test: Instagram is experimenting with a new Early Access feature that lets creators share a Reel exclusively with followers for the first 24 hours before it goes public. With follower counts carrying less weight than ever, Lindsey Gamble breaks down why this matters and how you could effectively use the tactic too [via Linsey Gamble’s Newsletter].